Things Have Been Foundhttps://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com
What I'm thinking about from time to time
Fri, 15 May 2009 04:51:01 +0000 en
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1 http://wordpress.com/https://s0.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngThings Have Been Foundhttps://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com
Media referenced in my paper on Body and the Mediated Voicehttps://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/media-referenced-in-my-paper-on-body-and-the-mediated-voice/
https://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/media-referenced-in-my-paper-on-body-and-the-mediated-voice/#respondFri, 15 May 2009 04:51:01 +0000http://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com/?p=52Here are some of the songs I talk about in my paper for Digital Theory from Spring 2009, about Body and Mediated voice. Note that in the paper I address specifically the recorded songs themselves and, for the most part, ignore the performances outside of the voice.

The Chipmunks- “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late)”

Alvino Rey and ‘Stringy,’ the Singing Steel Guitar

Kraftwerk- “Autobahn”

Laurie Anderson- “O Superman (For Massanet)”

DJ Shadow- “Midnight in a Perfect World”

T-Pain- “I’m N Luv (Wit a Stripper)”

Kanye West- “Say You Will”

Kanye West- “Pinocchio Story”

]]>https://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/media-referenced-in-my-paper-on-body-and-the-mediated-voice/feed/0thebaberGetting the Network We Needhttps://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com/2009/05/02/getting-the-network-we-need/
https://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com/2009/05/02/getting-the-network-we-need/#respondSat, 02 May 2009 14:48:39 +0000http://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com/?p=48Lawrence Lessig’s talk from March on Getting the Network we need, which synthesizes basically most of the ideas covered in my courses this semester.
]]>https://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com/2009/05/02/getting-the-network-we-need/feed/0thebaberWait Wait… Don’t Sell Me!*https://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/wait-wait-dont-sell-me/
https://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/wait-wait-dont-sell-me/#respondWed, 25 Feb 2009 16:44:17 +0000http://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/wait-wait-dont-sell-me/There was an op-ed from Author’s Guild president (and frequent NPR quiz show annoyance) Roy Blount Jr. in today’s NY Times about how authors and publishers should be getting audio-book rights from the Kindle’s text-to-audio feature. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/opinion/25blount.html

I think this is an interesting example of media content producers trying to keep up with a market where money is increasingly more in new distribution models. Is a text-to-audio reader really an audio book? Should it be treated as such? This isn’t too different from the Writer’s strike back in Fall of ’07 over the rights and royalties for web broadcasts, or the complaints of publishers and authors surrounding Google Books, or even the general industry complaints about piracy.

Some argue that the Author’s Guild’s complaint could apply to a teacher reading a book aloud to a classroom (in the same way downloading a torrent of an album or TV show is like making a cassette copy of a friend’s record or recording the show on your VCR). The editorial deals with this a little but there are still a lot of holes that will need to be filled in as old media and new media continue to collide

*For coming up with this headline, Paula Poundstone won Carl Kassel’s voice on the answering machine of one of our longtime readers!

]]>https://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/25-articles-about-25-random-things-about-me/feed/0thebaberGoogle and the Future of the Newshttps://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com/2009/02/05/google-and-the-future-of-the-news/
https://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com/2009/02/05/google-and-the-future-of-the-news/#respondThu, 05 Feb 2009 16:30:51 +0000http://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com/?p=41Peter Osnos suggests a creative solution to the newspaper revenue problem: make Google pay for clickthroughs to news.

“The notion that “information wants to be free” is absurd when the delivery mechanism is making a fortune and the creators are getting what amounts to zilch,” he says. That’s the money quote; Google IS making a fortune by delivering content. The question remains, though: should Google be punished for succeeding where the newspapers fail? Google makes its fortune via its ad network, meanwhile ad revenues (online or print) are drying up for the newspapers and magazines. I can’t imagine a world where only SOME sites get money from click-throughs, it would have to be an all or nothing deal to be even remotely legal. Still, this is a creative idea. If it were a little more thought through, so that Google stood to benefit at all and wasn’t just being asked to throw money at content providers, maybe he would have something worth Google’s consideration.

A new VP moves into the VP house, and Google gets higher quality satellite images of said house. Google claims there is no politicking going on here, they just now finally got a clear, non-pixelated aerial image of a giant swathe of property within one of the country’s major urban areas.

Whether or not the devious and malfeasant Cheney ever personally said “hey don’t let Google Earth show pictures of my house!” is something I won’t expound on, but this could be a good example of flak/sourcing in action in the Google culture. The information, in this case pictures of the VP’s house, was always available and was never “news,” but someone somewhere decided that this information shouldn’t be fully available to the public. Google wants to make the information free but they couldn’t bypass the source: the images were, presumably, given to Google as pixellated. Google isn’t creating information, just distributing it, so the information it distributes is necessarily subject to the flak and priorities of the source.

]]>https://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/i-can-see-clearly-now-the-cheneys-gone/feed/0thebaberGoogle and the Propaganda Modelhttps://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/google-and-the-propaganda-model/
https://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/google-and-the-propaganda-model/#respondWed, 03 Dec 2008 20:43:56 +0000http://thingshavebeenfound.wordpress.com/?p=36Trying to formulate this into an abstract for the PCA/ACA conference…

———–

Google and the Propaganda Model

Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman described the Propaganda Model media companies use to create message/ideology. According to Chomsky and Herman, and later elaborated by Robert McChesney, conglomeration, hypercommercialism, and concentration drive media producers/distributors and perpetuate, or create new, capitalist systems of oppression and message-making (1). As with many aspects of the new global economy, the definitions and applications of the propaganda model need to be expanded to understand how new digital media fit within this frame.

Google ranks among the most profitable corporations, and is the most highly valued media company, in the World (2). Like many of the most successful web applications, its business model differs greatly from traditional old media. The company doesn’t spend money on adverting itself outright and has created a program that targets ads to specific user inqueries in response to searches or e-mails, rather than seeking out specific demographics of users. Google’s unofficial motto is “Don’t be evil,” thereby asking users to hold it to a higher standard than other monopolistic corporations like Microsoft or News Corp. Given the revolutionary spirit behind the “Don’t be evil” motto, a spirit that is echoed by most user-generated content technologies and applications, it is all the more important to view Google critically and be aware of how the company operates within the propaganda model, often serving its corporate interests and perpetuating a political ideology on a global scale.

1st Filter: Size, Ownership, & Profit Orientation

Google dominates the global search market and took in over $16 billion USD in 2007 (Wikipedia). Google’s profitability has allowed it to buy out competitors like YouTube and DoubleClick, as well as create services to broaden its reach, like the Android mobile phone Operating system (to compete with Microsoft’s OS on the Blackberry and the iPhone OS). Since Google’s market is global in scale it is able to put more resources into influencing policy: they lobbied the US Federal Communications Commission to add an openness clause for mobile liscense attribution so that the Android OS might be more attractive to cellular providers (4). Google also settled a class action lawsuit brought against them by the Authors Guild and American Association of Publishers that allows Google Book Search to distribute digital copies of copyrighted books, putting complete control of what books are scanned and distributed in Google’s hands. Google actively pushes policy-makers and the legal system into accepting its agenda.Through its size and wealth Google is able to filter out competition.

2nd Filter: Advertising

Google created its own advertising provider, AdSense, and purchased DoubleClick, a world leader in display (banner) advertising. AdSense uses an auction system so that, ostensibly, anyone can create an ad, determine what keywords cause the ad to show up, and thus target consumers according to their search queries. However, Google determines when ads show up so if the highest bidder didn’t bid enough a search might turn up no ad results (5). Popular keywords will attract more advertising capital, filtering out competitive voices, while unpopular keywords might see no ads appear despite ads existing. Thus Google actually filters out the competitive voices it deems unprofitable.

3rd Filter: Sourcing

Google’s business is managing the flow of information. On the Web we can create sites for whatever we want and information is not necessarily sourced from governments or corporations, as it often is under the old media propaganda model. In many ways the democratization of information through tools like Google’s pagerank system, which determines the hierarchy of information based on popularity, allows Google to escape national-based propaganda models and operate globally. While Google does censor search results in China, in most cases it creates a free market for information.

However, as Google Books Search shows, an English-language bias and American-imperialist tendency might be seen in how information is distributed via Google and its ancillary search engines. In the global political economy Google often creates a distinctly American voice and filters out nation-states and their local interests.

4th Filter: Flak and the Enforcers

As Google has grown, so too have the voices of those critical of its practices. After it became clear that an attempted merger with Yahoo! would be met with intense scrutiny by the US Justice Department Google withdrew from the attempt despite arguing it was perfectly legal. Google settled with American publishers rather than fight an antitrust and copyright lawsuit over its Book Search. By avoiding legal confrontation and spinning settlements into positive news-stories Google is able to maintain its image as a gigantic media company that “isn’t evil,” that isn’t morally offensive to users despite monopolistic tendencies.

5th Filter: Control Mechanisms

For Google’s global digital economy the threat-control mechanisms aren’t political but economic. Terrorists and communists aren’t the enemies Google wants to mobilize the public against; the competition is. Google’s shimmering public image, maintained by its ‘Don’t Be Evil’ motto, high levels of transparency, and opening of access to tools and applications for users, allow it to paint the pay-based old media competition as threats to the digital revolution. If Google isn’t allowed to acquire Yahoo!, they argue, then Microsoft, a “closed” (and therefore more “evil”) company shouldn’t be allowed to either based on virtue.

Conclusions

Google’s role as a media-conglomerate on the web, expanding to cover new media (YouTube, Gmail, Google office applications, Picasa) and access (the Chrome browser, Android OS, financing other browsers to make Google the default search tool) in addition to its core profit-producing search/ad system, allow the company to expand the political economy from a national to a global scale. On this level, the ‘propaganda’ produced is an ideology against nation-state autonomy and old media methods (namely the hypercommercialism but, notably, not the conglomeration and concentration of power) but with a Western (American) bias. In the global digital economy everything from libraries (Book Search) to energy policy (The Green Energy Initiative) are controlled by the corporation, not by publicly-backed political institutions.

Even on the web there are “old media” models with distinct differences from the “new media” models found in the user-generated content technological revolution. If the User-generated content model views individuals as producers, rather than simply consumers, then web sites operating in this model will put the needs of the user ahead of the goals of driving consumption.

Yahoo! might be seen as an “old media”search engine, adding features to its homepage so that it resembles a mall more than a library reference desk. Contrast this with Google, whose sparse homepage invites the user to view the site as a tool rather than a content-producer:

Google and Search Engines as Message Producers

Content production and distribution, Stuart Hall points out, is inextricably tied to constructing “the message,” or meaning/ideology (1). A key difference between the Web and traditional media is that “producing content” on the Web is itself an abstract notion: Google, one of the most successful new media companies produces practically no original content but instead directs users to preexisting content through its search capabilities. Google’s official goal is “to organize the world’s information to make it universally accessible,” (2) which it seeks to do through indexing “readily available information on the internet” (3). Google, and most search engines in general, differ from traditional “old media” content distribution models in that, due to algorithms that respond to search queries by presenting the most popular results first, the engine’s promoting allows it to abdicate from encoding meaning into the results. The results presented are the result of previous users’ determining the popularity of pages, these sites argue. Whether this is a true position, whether Google-style search engines are free from ideology-production, is explored in greater depth here.

Google’s unofficial motto reflects the revolutionary promises some see in the Web, especially in user-generated content technologies: “Don’t be evil” (4).“Don’t be evil” is an extreme ideological statement but as a dominant producer in the Web economy Google demands more critical review. As the company extends its service to new global markets the “impact of Googlisation upon the nation-state, and vice versa, is intrinsically linked to the control of information in cyberspace” (3). In his analysis of three separate cases of Google’s corporate reach coming up against government systems in France, the USA and China, Dai reviews how Google spreads its reach in ways “detrimental to the autonomy of nation-states” (3), while the nation-states react by attempting to protect their own interests.

Google and Governments

Google’s relationship with China has drawn criticism from many sources as Google complied with the Chinese government’s censorship policies. As Lewis explains in the Intelligence Squared US debate on the topic “Google Violates Its ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Motto,”

If you Google “Tibetan independence” (in the US) you’ll get back pointers to some sites that advocate the freedom of Tibet from Chinese rule… But if you do it inside China, you won’t get references to [these same sites]… The world looks very different through the window that Google provides, in China, than through the window on the world that you have available to yourselves here (5).

Thus, Lewis and others argue, by complying with oppressive policies when it is in Google’s commercial interest the company is violating both its “Don’t be evil” motto as well as its goal to make all the world’s information accessible. This violation of the motto is all the more intriguing when coupled with other instances of Google’s interactions with nation-states: Google actively refused participation in a USA Department of Justice inquiry in the interest of “protecting users privacy” (and, by extension, its commercial interests); and the French government sought to establish a national search engine to protect its culture and economy from what it viewed as American imperialist tendencies. By working so actively to protect its commercial interest Google can be viewed through the propaganda model as representing “new tools of domination for achieving a familiar set of ends” (6).

Google Is Good?

The dominant view toward Google might be understood as “at its heart, a good company that provides extraordinary services to the public, and makes extraordinary amounts of information available to the public, and is working around the world to make information available” (5). Indeed as Google (and the Internet in general) has emerged as a tool connecting users to amounts of information unimaginable by old media, the prevailing concept has been that of a Digital Revolution, as opposed to Grazian’s argument that can perhaps be simplified as a “Digital continuation of status quo.” In a debate between six scholars and journalists on the topic “Google Violates Its ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Motto,” even those arguing for the motion conceded that any evil on the part of Google is better understood in relation to the company’s stated goal, rather than through comparing Google to other companies that may act far more “evil.” In his final statement in the debate Randal Picker, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School,said we should ask “when are they making a choice that we should understand to be one that benefits Google and hurts the market, hurts other participants in the market” (5), not necessarily whether Google as a whole is evil. For any argument against Google’s actions abetting the Chinese government’s censorship policies there exists another point saying Google’s very existence in China is a step toward democratizing information in the country (5). Likewise, where Jeanneny and Dai point to Google as an example of American-globalization of content/culture others see “increasing transparency and… personal autonomy” (5).

6. Grazian, David. “A Digital Revolution? A Reassessment of New Media and Cultural Production in the Digital Age.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Jan 2005: 209-222.

Schaefer, PD and Durham, MG. “On the Social Implications of Invisibility: The iMac G5 and the Effacement of the Technological Object.” Critical Studies in Media Communication Vol. 24, No. 1, March 2007: 39–56

Schaefer and Durham argue that the iMac G5 serves as an example of how, as new technologies allow machines to blend in with their environment, the effaced design hides the role of new technology as what they call a “social apparatus.” Through its design the iMac G5 disorients the user from its “materiality,” including the circumstances of its production and the implications of its disposal, while orienting “users in line with the corporate ideology of its manufacturer” (48).

The authors utilize arguments put forth by Fredric Jameson and other cultural philosophers who explain how new technologies change the operating structure of capitalism into something “indecipherable,” what Jameson described as a “postmodern ‘hyperspace’ [which] results in spatial mutations” (45). The authors connect Jameson’s theory to “lifestyle-based technology” and draw conclusions about how this technology affects individual users.

The authors give few other specific examples of the “effacement of the technological object” and, although they discuss the evolution of the iMac’s design, they do not discuss how more traditional computer designs avoid the implications of effacement. While the iMac G5 illustrates how the “computer becomes a surface” rather than a tool (44), the authors do not fully explain why traditional personal computers are more socially responsible.

Still, “computer design… [exemplifies] a growing gap between perceptual simplicity of technology and the increasing complexity of economic structures” (46). The authors propose users approach these new technologies critically in order to be aware of unequal social structures. Drawing attention to the disparities between the production and disposal of the iMac G5 and its effaced design, the authors decode the ideology espoused by the technology’s corporate manufacturer.

Dai explores how Google has grown in recent years and how this growth has affected the company’s relationships with nation-states. Google’s dominating the global market for internet searches“Googlisation [has an impact] upon the nation-state, and vice versa” (434).

Dai analyzes the growth of Google into “the most highly valued media company” (435) through its ad sales and public trading. Dai goes on to explore Google’s implications in a global marketplace by performing three case studies of the company’s relationships with France, the US, and China. In France Google is viewed as a synecdoche of American digital imperialism. In the US Google cited protecting users’ privacy as a reason to not hand over information to the Department of Justice; Dai suggests that Google was actually protecting “commercial interest” as much as protecting user privacy. Finally, in China Google cooperated with governmental policies of censorship.

These case studies showcase Google’s different responses to challenges in the global marketplace and Dai explains how Google’s responses could “be seen as detrimental to the autonomy of nation-states,” (441) so that ‘omnigooglisation’ serves as a tool for globalization. The case study approach allows Dai to reinforce this through specific examples and the example of Google’s relationship with China shows problems the company faces in disseminating its ultimate goals. However, Dai could elaborate more with deeper analysis into Google’s growth in case study countries.

Google’s growth in the global marketplace is “intrinsically linked to the control of information for the purpose of empowerment,” (441) and nation-states and Google are each attempting to guide this growth in order to protect their separate interests.

Mossberger, Tolbert, and Stansbury suggest their survey of low-income and minority American households proves the existence of a ‘digital divide’ that can be broken down into distinct access, skill, economic opportunity, and democratic divides. This understanding of the digital divide can influence public perception and policy.

The authors conducted a broad survey of households in high-poverty areas and compared the results with the general population. They analyze their results for evidence of the shapes and sizes of each of their four digital divides to assess which results are most significant. The survey approach allows them to quantify the digital divide in order to make a case for the divide’s existence and the need for governmental response.

The survey took into account many elements of the four distinct divides the authors proposed, determining which respondents had easy access to computers and the internet, what skills users possessed, how digital access was viewed and utilized as a tool for economic advancement, and the openness of respondents to using digital access for civic involvement. The authors conclude that there is a clear access divide based on socioeconomic background, and that along with this access divide there exists a skills divide where a significant portion of the low income respondents lacked the resources to properly use computers and the internet. The authors found that the majority of respondents do believe computer and internet skills enhance economic opportunity, but while respondents were open to using the internet to access information about government they were less willing to vote or participate in electronic meetings.

While the survey approach provides clear evidence for the existence of the access and skills divide it may not be an adequate tool for explaining how digital technology increases economic opportunity or civic involvement; the respondents perception that digital access is related to these latter divides is correlational but not proof. Additionally, the survey was structured so that it was looking specifically at the four proposed divides and thus did not allow for the possibility of additional divides like social status. The approach was also limited by the veracity of the responses; the authors say there was no way to measure literacy in the respondents (116) and that “there was a low response rate to questions about income level” (10). Ultimately the digital divide is an evolving issue and while this survey lays out a comprehensive framework, five years is a long time in this field and an update would be necessary to see how the field has changed since the study was undertaken.

The survey did verify that the digital access and skills divides do exist, and the authors lay out a case for why public policy intervention is necessary to solve these divides. They suggest several potential directions for policy to alleviate these divides. The authors did find that younger respondents were more likely to have the skills necessary to utilize digital tools to bridge the economic opportunity and democratic divides and propose that education is the key to narrowing the digital divide.